By William Mackay: On May 15th, WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (22-1, 16 KO’s) will be making his U.S. debut fight against Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, 5 KO’s) at Madison Square Garden, in New York. Khan, 23, has a lot of pressure on him in this fight as he’s looking to become a big mega star in American in the same class as Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Khan, for that reason, can’t simply get by Malignaggi in old way. He has to really dominate him and preferably take out before the 12th round.

Malignaggi knows this, and will be looking to upset Khan’s plans by testing his weak chin and trying to take him out if possible. Khan recently came out with his five year plan, saying that he only sees himself fighting five more years before retiring at the still young age of 28. Before then, Khan sees himself fighting both Mayweather and Pacquiao in mega fights. This is nice goal to him and you can’t take take anything away from the young Khan for being ambitious.

However, he’s going to really step it up a notch in terms of competition if he’s going to get to the level of Mayweather and Pacquiao in the near future. What Khan fails to realizes is that if he has any chance at all in fighting Mayweather and Pacquiao, he will have to do it well before five years is up, as both of those fighters will be likely long gone by that time. Khan is doing well with his fight against Malignaggi on May 15th.

That’s not a bad fight, but it’s also not the kind of opponent that Khan needs to get the kind of press he wants. Malignaggi has zero power and will be running around the ring all night long trying to duck punches and peck away at Khan with his often soft shots. That’s not really the kind of test that Khan requires to start getting the huge public support that he wants.

First of all, Khan needs to turn his offense into overdrive and try to take Malignaggi out as quickly as he can. And provided that he does this, Khan immediately should go after the winner of the July 17th fight between Timothy Bradley and Marcos Maidana. The only way that Khan is going to get the attention that he wants from boxing fans is to take serious risks with his career. Fighting the winner of Bradley-Maidana, is the kind of risks that Khan needs to take.

Khan won’t accomplish much if he keeps on defending his WBA title against whoever the WBA pushes to the top of the rankings, because we already saw that they don’t always put the best possible fighter at the top spot when they had Dmitri Salita as number #1. Khan’s promotional team and trainer might not want to put Khan in deep waters just yet, but I think he needs to stand up on his hind legs and resist being held back and be assertive in choosing guys like Maidana, Bradley or Devon Alexander. That’s how he’ll get popular in a real hurry.